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Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life for raping an elderly woman. He was 13 at the time of the attack.
Terrance Graham, implicated in several armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence.
Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.
The Supreme Court is being asked to review if locking up juveniles for life is cruel, unusual and unconstitutional. Other than death penalty cases, the justices have never found that a penalty crossed the cruel and unusual line.
At what age is a life sentence appropriate and why?
Absolutely. If, by 13 or 14 a person doesn't know right from wrong, he never will. Why should a juvenile commit a horrendous crime only to have his record wiped clean at the age of 18? Life sentences for juveniles is appropriate when the crime calls for it.
We just had a double murder happin here the suspect (innocent until proven otherwise) is 16 years old.
Someone told on him that he did do the crime!!
This 16 year old was arrested two weeks prior for Assult with a Handgun and was out of jail on Bond..
Why?? His ass should have been still locked up, Obviously the boy is to blame for killing others.
BUT should the system not be to blame also for letting a person out on bond when he was charged with a firearm crime just two weeks prior??
Throw this kid in Prison, Big boy prison. Then execute him when he turns 18.. Screw a life sentence.
Joe Sullivan was sentenced to life for raping an elderly woman. He was 13 at the time of the attack.
Terrance Graham, implicated in several armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence.
Life sentences with no chance of parole are rare for juveniles tried as adults and convicted of crimes less serious than killing. Just over 100 prison inmates in the United States are serving those terms, according to data compiled by opponents of the sentences.
The Supreme Court is being asked to review if locking up juveniles for life is cruel, unusual and unconstitutional. Other than death penalty cases, the justices have never found that a penalty crossed the cruel and unusual line.
At what age is a life sentence appropriate and why?
I am not going to say that all teens should get the same type of sentence but I do agree that the case may merit it in some cases.
I am aware that the resoning abilities are not fully developed in a teen's brain and that can be taken into consideration. But when a teen commits crimes like murder with no remorse and shows no remorse there has to be a limit how much we consider his age. We need to make a decision whether this teen will still be a menance to society. Granted that if he is sentenced for life and let us say at a later age he does show change in respecting the law, life, etc. maybe he can get a chance but he REALLY needs to show that with ample supporting evidence and support from the community and experts on the field, take care.
Kids that kill without remorse should be either imprisoned for life, executed, or be sent to sniper school and kept under strict military discipline for the rest of their lives.
Prison in this country is a joke. There is no real deterrent - perhaps if our prisons were more like those one hears rumors about down in Mexico or Thailand, teens and adults alike would less likely to commit crimes.
Then there's the added bonus of all the money that would be saved.
For those who commit capital crimes (murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc) where there is NO doubt of any kind (via DNA or perhaps a video), we should NOT be mollycoddling them for 50-60 years, paying for them to eat, live in air conditioning, watch TV, get useless college degrees, etc.
If they don't get the death penalty, at the very least, HARD time should go back to being that - HARD!
^^^^ This right here! Great post sskkc! Some people are natural born sociopaths/psychopaths. Also, they can be great "pretenders"...displaying outward signs of remorse, and yet incapable of actually "feeling" it. Watch any good actor on television, they can make you believe that they are truly terrified, heartbroken, remorseful, hysterically happy, etc. Viscious monsters should not be taken care of for their entire lives. Why should they be fed, housed, their utilities paid, and like the above poster mentioned, given completely useless college degrees!! Give the free college degrees to people in the outside world who are WILLING to live in harmony with society and actually give something BACK!
In my state a thirteen year old couldn't get a life sentence because a juvenile would have to be at least fourteen to be certified to stand trial as an adult. I don't know the particulars of the crimes alleged. I don't think the crime of armed robbery should ordinarily result in a life sentence for a juvenile or an adult. Should the perpetrator be put away for a long time? Yes. I'd say a 5-10 year sentence for armed robbery is about right. Rape is a harder one for me. I would say a thirteen old should not ordinariliy serve life for that offense. I'd want to know more about the crime though. If the crime involved physical assaults on the victim that went beyond sex that would certainly make me look at it as a more serious offense.
I don't agree with the statement that if someone doesn't know "right or wrong before" they are are 13 than they never will. That is BS. What we have too much of in this country are totally inept people raising children who probably should not be allowed to do so. Small wonder that they do it badly. What is even worse that people really don't want to grapple with this as a problem. I say there are situations in this society where the state should march in and break up some families that are particularly dysfunctional. These kids didn't end up this way purely on their own. Put the kids in an institution and raise them there if you have too.
Its amazing to me how perspectives change. The attitude in the sixties and seventies was that crime was more on of an environmental sort of thing. Most crime was committed by people in the bad parts of town. It was generally committed by people in groups that had been historically discriminated against. The major focus at that time was to try to eliminate or reduce slums, bad schools, unsupervised children, and poverty. This approach had limitations, but there is no question that environment plays a role in commission of crime.
Now, the perspective seems totally different. There is much more a focus on the idea that criminals are just "bad" people. No need to worry about trying to reform the conditions which result in criminal behavior. No, its just a matter of "individual responsibility". The group that believes in this invariably calls for tougher sentences. Life imprisonment isn't enough they say, we need the death penalty. I'm starting to hear some say the problem is that lethal injection is "too good for em" we need a method thats slow and painful. I wonder if the next step will be some saying we need to return to torturing people in the public square?
What we really need is a recognition that crime is both a function of the environment and a function of the minds of individual perpetrators who commit it. There are some people who really need to be locked away forever. There are also people who we can not only reform, but if we do so it will be better for us as taxpayers and save our society money.
This country is not drowning in crime. Crime is a serious problem. However, the FBI statistics indicate a downward trend for violent crime and property crime that began back in the 1990's. The streets of major cities are safer than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Although, some people do nothing but watch shows like "Law and Order" or "America's Top Wanted" and convince themselves otherwise.
I suspect those who want simple solutions will discount this post. Retribution has really become a popular theme in this country and whether it solves a problem or not is quite secondary to many.
Look up the case of Willie Bosket here in NYC. If a juvenile commits an adult crime (in Bosket's case, sneaking up behind people and shooting them at point blank range because he thought it was "fun"), then he or she should get whatever the maximum permissible penalty in that state happens to be.
Honestly... I have to be quiet about this, I will most likely be called Racist..
Even though I would think the same about a white guy..
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